Bush technology chief quits in wake of insensitive comments

WASHINGTON — A day after apologizing for making insensitive remarks on Twitter, the technology chief of Jeb Bush's presidential campaign-in-waiting has resigned.

Ethan Czahor, hired in January to serve as chief technology officer of the former Florida Republican governor's Right to Rise political action committee, had posted messages on his personal Twitter account before his hiring that referred to women as "sluts" and made remarks about gay men.

He resigned after racially insensitive comments were found on a website attributed to Czahor.

Bush spokesman Kristy Campbell noted that Czahor had apologized for "regrettable and insensitive comments" that did not reflect the views of Bush or his organization. But she added that it was "appropriate for him to step aside."

Czahor said in Twitter messages posted late Tuesday that he hoped his "recent news won't dissuade future techies from entering politics, regardless of political affiliations/backgrounds." He said he had resigned, wished good luck to those at Right to Rise and apologized "in advance to whoever fills my position."

In one tweet posted in 2009 and since deleted, Czahor wrote, "new study confirms old belief: college female art majors are sluts, science majors are also sluts but uglier."

The additional comments discovered Tuesday and first reported by The Huffington Post were made in January 2008 on a website for a radio show that Czahor hosted while he was a college student in Pennsylvania. He praised Martin Luther King Jr., saying that the civil rights leader "didn't have his pants sagged to his ankles, and he wasn't delivering his speech in `jibberish' or `slang."'

After the initial comments were found on Twitter, Bush's team had said the former governor found them to be "inappropriate," but that Czahor could remain with Right to Rise.

Czahor's resignation is the second tech-related hiccup for Bush this week. He posted hundreds of thousands of emails from his time as Florida governor to a new website on Tuesday, but drew some criticism because the emails include some personal information of those with whom Bush corresponded.

The emails were part of the public domain, thanks to Florida's strong open records laws, and Bush said he released what his team got from the state's archive. He pledged to block any information that shouldn't be public.